Obama's mother, divorced from Obama's father, married a man from Indonesia named Lolo Soetoro, and the family relocated to the country from 1967-71. At first, Obama attended the Catholic school, Fransiskus Assisis, where documents showed he enrolled as a Muslim, the religion of his stepfather.

The document required that each student choose one of five state-sanctioned religions when registering _ Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic or Protestant. Gibbs said he wasn't sure why the document had Obama listed as a Muslim.

"Senator Obama has never been a Muslim," Gibbs said. "As a six-year-old in Catholic school, he studied the catechism."

Now something here is incorrect. Either Gibbs' claim is not true, or the school records are wrong. Either he enrolled as a Muslim and took religious training as a Muslim or as a Catholic.

The AP caption reads: “This registration document, made available on Jan. 24, 2007, by the Fransiskus Assisi school in Jakarta, Indonesia, shows the registration of Barack Obama under the name Barry Soetoro into the Catholic school made by his step-father, Lolo Soetoro. The document lists Barry Soetoro as a Indonesian citizen, born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, and shows his Muslim step-father listed the boy’s religion as Islam. (AP Photo/ Tatan Syuflana)”

Eagle-eyed reader Gregory Koster caught an interesting contradiction from Senator Obaama, dealing with the senator's office. Of course, we've seen Obama flip-flop so much during this campaign that this shouldn't shock you. But it should amuse you:

Consider this, from the AP, reporting on the offices of the presidential candidates:

Obama's desktop, once used by former Illinois Sen. Paul Simon, is a testament to discipline.

Now, consider this, from the January 15th Democratic debate, moderated by Tim Russert:

RUSSERT: You said each of you have strengths and weaknesses. I want to ask each of you quickly, your greatest strength, your greatest weakness.

OBAMA: My greatest strength, I think is the ability to bring people together from different perspectives to get them to recognize what they have in common and to move people in a different direction. And as I indicated before, my greatest weakness, I think, is when it comes to — I’ll give you a very good example: I ask my staff members not to hand me a paper until two seconds before I need it because I will lose it. You know, the —- you know…(LAUGHTER)And my desk and my office doesn’t look good. I’ve got to have somebody around me who is keeping track of that stuff. And that’s not trivial; I need to have good people in place who can make sure that systems run.

Hmm. May sound like a trivial contradiction, but it isn't. If Obama's desk is a "testament to discipline," why would he describe it as a kind of disaster area? Maybe he was trying to sound more "human." Or maybe there's a casualness about the truth that comes naturally to Senator Obama, something, very frankly, that I think we've seen all along.

Reminds me of those people who get caught padding resumés.

August 16, 2008.

I also found that the biggest problems always came from people who would lie about tiny things, just to make a point they thought would help them look good.

They have no base. No bottom. Nothing to touch. Nothing that you can expect to help when help is needed.